Frank: "It's almost as if, in them, they had a kind of... signal. "

[gsyh.livejournal.com]

Rebecca, on the phone: "He's not Agent Gideon, is he?"
- "No Way Out II", Criminal Minds

"Intuition is always right in at least two important ways;
It is always in response to something.
it always has your best interest at heart"
― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Trigger Warning: for PTSD, mentions of sexual assault, and revictimization

I think Rebecca was not surprised that Frank wasn't who he claimed to be, she was afraid of him even as she invited him in, and Frank was taunting her fear all the way up to the reveal.

...but Rebecca ignored her fear of Frank, because, almost like the veteran in "Distress", she's a victim who could no longer distinguish a fear of present danger from the memory of danger. Rebecca ignored her fear of Frank and invited him in, the way she ignores her fears of being kidnapped again when she goes outside, every single day.

People who have already been victimized, are at a greater risk of being revictimized.
"PTSD could give the victim the appearance of vulnerability in dangerous situations and effect the ability of the victim to defend themselves." - Multiple Victimization

Knowledge of danger informs us, but traumatic memory colors and contaminate our judgement of present danger - when the feeling of fear is constant, we become numb to its presence.

Take the recent episode "Hope", a the woman in Garcia's victim support group, Monica Kingston, lost her daughter around the same time of the year as when the unsub asked her to get into his car - some people have remarked how stupid she was to do that, especially because 'shouldn't she have learnt from her daughter being kidnapped how NOT to get herself kidnapped'? No, she was too lost in the past trauma of losing her daughter to even register the NOW.

Elle shot a man without a gun in "Aftermath", he was a rapist scum and I approve of her actions, but I don't doubt that Elle herself was genuinely afraid of him when he was creeping on her, framing her in the same narrative as he framed his victims. She wasn't in the now, she was reliving her traumas, feeling the Fisher King's fingers moving inside her, and um, this, from the original character descriptions:

Agent Elle Greenaway, described as “Late 20s. All ethnicities. She is a young, sharp, resourceful and feisty FBI agent with a background in sex offender cases. Her specialty area stems from having been raped at age 19, and the assailant never having been caught. Elle impresses the hell out of the task force members, which is what she wants, as she is bucking for the opening in the BAU (Behavioral Analysis Unit) at Quantico. According to her “file,” Elle’s biggest character flaw is impatience.”

...because sometimes, you threat assessment corrodes down to what could be done to you and not what's probable.

Then there is Jason Gideon:

Patinkin will play Spec. Agent Jason Donovan, described in the casting notice as “35-45. Experienced and has been around the block, deceptively average-looking, articulate, with a commanding presence, he’s a seasoned FBI profiler who traded in field work for seminar instruction after witnessing a dozen cops die in a shrapnel bomb. He maintains a close relationship with his ex-wife, a psychiatrist, who has been helping him deal. When a serial murderer plagues the Seattle area, Donovan is asked to return as a full-time Unit Chief, but kept under close supervision.”

He was married to his psychiatrist, whether she was his psychiatrist officially or not. He's like the poster picture for PTSD shock - he's frequently zoning out, and thus, have a crap assessment of present danger when he's in the same room as it. Take the Footpath Killer for example, if that was Agent Prentiss, she would have smiled at him and then Acted Normally back outside where she would draw her firearm in readiness - not suspiciously put on the, "I Just Realise, You Sir, Are A Serial Killer" face while slowly snailing back to his car, god, I wanted to scream "Behind you!" the first time I was watching it.

Attempting to rush into a burning room when the screaming have already stopped


Then there is Spencer Reid, I might be voicing an unpopular opinion here, it's certainly smacks of a Family Unfriendly Aesop: Spencer was a stronger person in Season 1 than Season 7.

I'm a firm believer against the belief that there could be any redeeming point in tragedy, that there is any virtue to be found in suffering. I disagree with quips such as "What doesn't kill you only make you stronger", I dunno, maybe for some people, maybe for some things, like mountain climbing, but um, not being assaulted and/or kidnapped, it certainly didn't make Spencer stronger.

In "It Takes A Village", years after Tobias Hankel, Spencer confessed to JJ (or threw it at her face), that he considered taking drugs again when he thought Emily was dead. That drug addiction thing? That nothing else would work thing? It's going to always hang over him, always.

...and Spencer Reid's always rushing into danger was a part of him being always eager to please - because he was a victim of bullying by his peers and parental neglect (I don't blame Diane, but the end result was...).

It was only after Tobias Hankel though, that I started reading suicidal recklessness into Reid's eagerness to rush on scene (along with a personal desperation to save the day) - back in "Derailed" 109, 'Could one of you at least look like you're going to see me again', that was the slight hysteria of someone who did give a damn about not being killed. Him rushing on scene then was partly a youthful misconception in one's immortality. After that, we have:

316 Elephant's Memory: Reid purposely walk into sniper's shot to save the life of an unsub, this is after he was there when the Professor got shot in "Empty Planet"

612 Corazón: Reid goes off, ALONE, to confront the unsub in a haunted house an abandoned orphanage, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! No bb, no. Most of all though, was his reaction of Just Another Day Of Me Almost Being Killed at the end of it, and not in a cool "can't get to me" but an actual "I don't give a damn" kinda way.

Comments

[full-metal-ox.livejournal.com]

Is "weetabo" a variant of "weeaboo"? (I'd always understood the latter term to denote a Westerner not of Asian descent obsessed with all things Japanese, but never got the impression that such a person was by definition white--unlike the term it superceded, "Wapanese.")